Best Of 2018 – Andrew Edmunds: Clever Title?! I Barely KNOW Her Title!
2018 was a very strange year for me. I started the year with an intracranial hemorrhage (I’m fully recovered now, thanks) and ended the year with a marriage (she may never fully recover, thanks). Through …
Metal Church – Damned If You Do Review
Any new Metal Church is guaranteed to pique interest amongst the old farts around Last Rites HQ, but this particular new Metal Church has been something of a point of polite contention around the break-room …
Master – Vindictive Miscreant Review
“You’re nothing but a vindictive miscreant!” spit-snarls Master mainman Paul Speckmann to open this one, his primary band’s 14th album in twice as many years. And if you know Master, if you’ve been keeping up …
Bloodbath – The Arrow Of Satan Is Drawn Review
In some ways, Bloodbath wasn’t a band that should’ve lasted this long—begun as a side project; focused entirely on regurgitating a classic sound; born of members occupied with other, bigger, more serious endeavors. Bands like …
Cripple Bastards – La Fine Cresca Da Dentro Review
These Italian grinders are celebrating their 30th anniversary with this one, their seventh full-length album, but don’t think for a second that they’ve mellowed in their older age. Their last full-length, 2014’s Nero in metastasi, …
Them – Manor Of The Se7en Gables Review
Halloween is over for another year, but the horror continues, at least for a little while… Perhaps not surprisingly, based on on their name, Them began life as a King Diamond tribute, and their first …
Putrisect – Cascading Inferno Review
When it comes to death metal, I mostly find myself gravitating towards the gross and putrid, the fetid and icky, the old-school sound of rotting flesh and rotten riff. There’s a time and place for …
Sepulcher – Panoptic Horror Review
Typically, when I’m writing a review, I read up on the band — bios, interviews, press releases, anything that will help me understand where the music is coming from: its inception, its influence, its intent. …